NEW ZEALAND. TO THE CHRISTIAN CHILDREN OF ENGLAND. DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS!-Many of you have read of New Zealand, and have shuddered to think of the people of that country eating all the white men they could get hold of! Only ten years ago, in a single district called Tauranga, sixty human bodies were cooked in one night. It is a horrible story-but as true as it is horrid. Now, through the labours of the missionaries, there is not a man, even of the heathen party, who is not ashamed of the practice; and the missionaries believe, that if there were war now anywhere, the bodies of the slain would be respected. It was so in the late war at Waikata. In one spot, where cannibals were wont to feast, there were two or three hundred people assembled-not one of them with any kind of English clothing-their heads all ornamented with white sea-birds' feathers: they were all most attentive and reverent in manner, and sang the hymns to their own native tunes-tune rather, for they have but one, a sort of monotonous, rather mournful chant, which would sound well, however, from many voices together. On his last journey, the missionary was told that an old woman (too lame to travel to the place where he was baptizing converts) greatly desired to be baptized. She lived a day's journey off, among the hills. Her acquaintance spoke so earnestly of her desire for the rite, that he determined to turn aside to visit her. He got to her place the next evening-a lonely, desolate-looking spot, with two or three scattered huts. After a while, a deformed, squalid old woman crawled out, dressed in an old dirty mat, her grizzled hair tangled and uncombed. She sat unwilling to answer any of his questions for a while. As she became less shy, he catechised her, and found her very intelligent, and that she seemed really to embrace, with the understanding as well as with the heart, the main doctrines of the Gospel. She told him that, the year before, she had heard that some of her people at Taupo were to be baptized; she had started to go there, her people carrying her in a litter, but she was obliged to give up the attempt, the distance was too great in her diseased state. This woman had no missionary to teach her, save from among her own people. The next morning she was baptized. See, then, dear children! what the Gospel has done for the cannibal New Zealander! O pray for them and all heathen people; and as you grow up and get money, be sure you never forget the cause of Christian Missions. Your loving friend, A PASTOR. Oct., 1850. TO MY LITTLE CHILD. It is God, who made the earth; God, who sends the pleasant breeze, CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER. 'Tis time to go to bed, And shut my weary eyes; Have not obeyed my God; I now am very young; But, as I older grow, I hope to praise thee with my tongue, And more of thee to know. The Cabinet. POPERY. THE signs of the times are such as to call aloud for a universal lifting up of a sturdy and thorough Protestantism. It is no longer safe for the conductors of the Religious Press to take things for granted, where so much is at stake. The bulk of the people are ignorant of the true character of Popery, which they are but too successfully taught to believe is a somewhat fantastic but yet a very harmless thing. This is a deadly mistake! It is, at this moment, the same thing it was when it robbed, imprisoned, hanged, and burnt the excellent of the earth. Let Popery recover its ancient reign, and be restored to the full occupancy of the mighty sphere it once ruled, and it will be found to revel in its ancient practices. A system which boasts perfection and infallibility rejects with scorn the compliment that it is now changed and improved, as an insult to the chief attribute of its majesty. Popery, in its essence, is unchangeable; and, glorying in its resemblance to Him from whom it impiously and proudly professes to come, it claims to be "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." No change for the better awaits it: its iniquity is too great to admit of reformation. Reformed, it is Popery no longer. Its doom is fixed in the councils of Heaven! It is destined not to be reformed, but destroyed! And this great work the Son of God has reserved for his own hand: he will do it by the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming. May he hasten it in his time! It is to be hoped the day is coming when the Pulpit of England will do its duty, when the Sunday-school will not be found wanting, and when the Religious Press will discharge the obligations which rest upon it. By the help of God, we determine to contribute our share to the spread of light on this great question. The Press, as well as the Pulpit, has slumbered already too long, and is even now only half awake, although the enemy is at the gate! It is time to break off the fatal truce with Antichrist, and to proclaim universal war, till the firmament echo with the cry of the heavenly hosts, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird!" Henceforth let the watchword be, "The Bible, and nothing but the Bible;" and the battle-cry, "No PEACE WITH ROME!" The curse of Heaven is upon her; and for ever far be alliance with her from us, and our children, and our children's children, to all generations! We have said the Religious Press has too long slumbered in this momentous matter of Popery, and we ourselves plead guilty to a share in the neglect of our high trust anent this concern. We have not hitherto been duly alive to our duty, and have too much trusted to the spontaneous, unprompted, and unassisted inquiry of our readers. But this has been an error, which must forthwith be corrected: we shall, therefore, in fair proportion to the claims of the subject, for the time to come, deal with it, both by original discussion, and by a judicious exhumation of the golden remains of a former, and, in relation to this question, a wiser and more enlightened age. As the matter of Supremacy is meanwhile uppermost in the British mind, it is proper to give our younger readers some idea of the question, and hence the following Essay, condensed and corrected, from a very interesting tract published by the Christian Knowledge Society-a bad authority on most points, but not so in relation to Rome. This will be succeeded by an Article setting forth the distinguishing doctrines of Rome and of the Bible. It will show how the best of our fathers dealt with the question. ON THE SUPREMACY OF THE POPE. THE root and groundwork of much of the evil which for many centuries oppressed the nations of Christendom, was, in the assumption by Rome, of universal sovereignty over all the churches and all the kingdoms of the world, and of infallibility vested in her Sovereign pontiff. The advocates of Boman supremacy claim the whole of Christ's fold as Rome's heritage. The Bishop of Rome they maintain to be the sole vicar of Christ, his vicegerent and representative on earth. Except in the communion of Rome, they deny that there is any spiritual safety. The doctrines sanctioned by the Pope are all put on an equality with the plainest revelations of the written Word of God; for them all they claim the same certainty. Not content with spiritual dominion over the consciences of Christians, the Popes assumed to themselves a divine right to dethrone kings, to release the subjects of any government from their allegiance, and to shut out from the fold of Christ all who impeded or refused to second the Court of Rome in the exercise of these powers. We in England have been so long accustomed to the protection which our Constitution gives to all against the attacks of any foreign tyranny, spiritual or temporal, that we not only feel easy as to any future interference on the part of Rome affecting our spiritual liberty and political independence, but we can scarcely, without an effort, conceive that our country eyer was in reality exposed to any such dangers as we are now contemplating. We are incredulous as to the facts alleged-we suspect some mistake, either wilful or involuntary, as to the actual exercise of such enormous and monstrous power by the Court of Rome; we consequently feel not so much need of proofs to show that the assumption of such power by any man, or any body of men, is unjustifiable; we want rather to be satisfied that such powers have actually been claimed and exercised-that the doctrine of the sovereignty and infallibility of the Pope is inherent in the papal system, and has been carried into execution in our own country; for whatever it may be in words, however monstrous in theory, if it never was accompanied by any outward and tangible act which might endanger the peace and threaten the liberties of our native land or our colonies, we might well let it pass as a dead letter. To know, then, what, in this point, Rome has actually been in spirit and in practice, and what, therefore, under a combination of favourable events, Rome may to our peril and cost be again, we need not have recourse to the early history of our people, when, after the apostacy was perfected, all professed the Popish religion, and all acknowledged allegiance to Rome; nor need we rely on our own documentary annals, nor on the testimony of our accredited historians; abundant proof, evidence beyond gainsaying or suspicion, is contained to this very day in the records of Rome itself. We need look only to the Bull or Letters Apostolic, as the Pope's decrees are called, by which Pope Pius the Fifth excommunicated and condemned our Queen Elizabeth, and, as far as he could, deprived her of her throne; absolved her subjects from their oath of allegiance; and laid under the same curse and anathema all who dared to maintain her rights, or adhere to her as their sovereign. This indisputable proof of what Rome has shown herself to be, even since the reformation of religion in England, and what she might be again, if, from morbid delicacy or carelessness, we betray our trust, and cease to guard ourselves against the revival of such extravagant pretensions, is recorded in the second volume of the Roman Pontiff's decrees, called the "Bullarium." It bears date April 27th, 1570, (that is in the fifth year of his pontificate, the twelfth year of Elizabeth's reign,) and is entitled "The Condemnation and Ex. communication of Elizabeth Queen of England, and of her Adherents, with the addition of other punishments, by Pope Pius the Fifth." Among other passages are the following: "He who reigns on high, to whom all power is given in heaven and in earth, delivered one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, without the pale of which is no salvation, to one only person in earth, namely, to the prince (or chief, principi) of the Apostles, to Peter, and to Peter's successor, the Roman Pontiff, to be governed in the plenitude of power. This one person he appointed prince (or chief) over all nations and all kingdoms, to pluck up, to destroy, to scatter abroad, to disperse, to plant, and to build; that he might, in the unity of the Spirit, keep together the faithful people, bound by the tie of mutual charity, and present them safe and unhurt to their Saviour. . . . . But the number of impious men has so increased in power, that no place in the world is now left which they have not tried to corrupt by the worst doctrines: among others, Elizabeth, the servant of wickedness, the pretended Queen of England, adding her endeavours; with whom, as their asylum, the most hostile of all have found a refuge." Then having enumerated the alleged crimes of Elizabeth, and the impieties that she had monstrously usurped to herself the place of supreme head and chief authority in the Church in all England, compelling her subjects to abjure the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and on their oath to acknowledge herself as sovereign in temporal and spiritual matters, and not suffering the Pope's nuncios to pass over into England to reason and remonstrate with her, the Pope proceeds: "We, by necessity, driven to the arms of justice against her, cannot soothe our right to which that Pope laid claim; and as long as she usurps the title of mistress and queen of all nations, and clings to her commission to pull down and destroy, agreeably to the dictates of her own infallibility, so long our duty to God, to his Church, to our nation, and to our children's children, calls upon us as wise men to guard against the return of such danger; to take provident measures that Rome shall hereafter gain no domination in England. Our firm resolve on this point must never lead us to judge unjustly, or act unkindly, or entertain a wish to interfere with the consciences of individuals when they do not interfere with our liberties, civil and reli grief that we are led to punish one whose ancestors deserved so well of the Christian commonwealth. Wherefore, upheld by the authority of Him who willed to place us (though unequal to such a work) on this supreme throne of justice, we, of the plenitude of the Apostolic power, declare that the aforesaid Elizabeth, being a heretic and the favourer of heretics, and those who adhere to her in the matters aforesaid, have incurred the sentence of cursing, and are cut off from the unity of Christ's body; and moreover that she herself is deprived of her pretended right to the kingdom aforesaid, and also of all and every kind of dominion, dignity, and privilege; and likewise that the nobles, subjects, and people of the said kingdom, and all others who have in any way whatever sworn to her, are for ever absolved from such oath, and utterly from all obli-gious; which is the case with Popery. gation of dominion, fealty, and obedience, as we by authority of these presents do absolve them; and we deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended right of the kingdom, and of all others aforesaid; and we charge and forbid all and singular the nobles, subjects, people, and others aforesaid, that they dare not obey her or her admonitions, commands, and laws. Whosoever shall act otherwise, them we bind by like sentence of cursing." To our fellow-subjects who acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, we must show all forbearance and charity, cheerfully conceding to them the same liberty of conscience which we claim as our own birthright; but let us watch all movements in the direction of promoting and in upholding the aggressive authority of Rome against the liberties of this country. Circumstances Now it pleased the King of Heaven, have at length conspired to bring by whom earthly princes reign, that about such a combination: and necesthis anathema of the Sovereign Pontiff sity is laid upon us to be on our guard deposing the Queen of England should against the united efforts of our enefall lifeless to the ground; but that mies, and in this view it is well for was, because the adherents of Rome us never to speak of the supremacy were too weak to carry his will and claimed by the Pope as a harmless decree into execution. Our own his- shadow. It may suit the purposes of tory tells us of an earlier time when the adherents of Rome in our own the Pope's malediction and interdict times to represent these precautions threw misery and mourning over the as the fruits of unworthy suspicions, whole land; as this anathema of groundless anticipations, the dreams excommunication and dethronement of bigotry, fitted rather for benighted would have done, had his supporters ages long passed away, than for the been sufficiently numerous and power- enlightened liberality of modern times. ful. Rome has never abandoned the But our spiritual inheritance is too |